The global futures scenarios vary widely along different demographic, socio-economic,
and technological dimensions, as shown in Table 2.2. Scenarios
range from economic collapse to virtually unlimited economic prosperity; from
population collapse (caused by famine, disease, and/or war), to stabilization
near current levels, to explosive population growth. Governance systems range
from decentralized, semi-autonomous communities with a form of direct democracy
to global oligarchies. Some scenarios posit large improvements in income and
social equality, within and among nations, while others foresee a widening of
the income gap. Many scenarios envisage a future world that is high-tech, with
varying rates of diffusion, but some envisage a world in which a crisis of some
kind leads to a decline in technological development and even a loss of technological
capability. Most scenarios are pessimistic with respect to resource availability;
some are more optimistic, pointing to the ability of technology and demand changes
to alleviate scarcity. Most scenarios also project increasing environmental
degradation; more positively, many of these scenarios portray this trend reversing
in the long-term, leading to an eventual improvement in environmental quality.
The sustainable development scenarios, on the other hand, describe a future
in which environmental quality improves throughout the scenario.

The scenarios were grouped together according to their main distinguishing
features and were combined into four groups, according to whether they described
futures in which, according to the scenario authors, conditions deteriorate
(group 1), stay the same (group 2), or improve (groups 3 and 4). These groups
are summarized in Table2.3.

Table 2.3: Global futures scenario groups

Scenario group

Scenario subgroups

Number of scenarios

1. Pessimistic Scenarios

Breakdown: collapse of human society

5

Fractured World: deterioration into antagonistic regional
blocs

9

Chaos: instability and disorder

4

Conservative: world economic crash is succeeded by conservative
and risk-averse regime

2

2. Current Trends Scenarios

Conventional: no significant change from current and/or continuation
of present-day trends

12

High Growth: government facilitates business, leading to prosperity

14

Asia Shift: economic power shifts from the West to Asia

5

Economy Paramount: emphasis on economic values leads to deterioration
in social and environmental conditions

Our Common Future: increased economic activity is made
to be consistent with improved equity and environmental quality

21

Low Consumption: conscious shift from consumerism

16

The scenarios in group 1 describe futures in which conditions deteriorate from
present. Some of these scenarios describe a complete breakdown of human society,
because of war, resource exhaustion, or economic collapse. Other scenarios describe
a future in which the world is fractured into antagonistic blocs or in which
society deteriorates into chaos. Still others describe futures in which the
global economic system crashes and is succeeded by a conservative, risk-averse
regime.

The scenarios in group 2 describe futures in which conditions do not change
significantly from the present, or in which current trends continue. Many of
these scenarios are reference scenarios, which are used by their
authors to contrast other alternative future scenarios. In general, these scenarios
are pessimistic; they describe futures in which many current problems get worse,
although there may be improvement in some areas. This is particularly true of
the Economy Paramount scenarios, which describe futures in which
an emphasis on economic over other values leads to deteriorating environmental
and social conditions. Other scenarios in group 2 describe a more optimistic
future in which government and business co-operate to improve market conditions
(generally through market liberalization and free trade), leading to an increase
in prosperity. Several of the group 2 scenarios foresee a shift in economic
power from the West to Asia.

The group 3 scenarios could be characterized as High-Tech Optimist
scenarios. They describe futures in which technology and markets combine to
produce increased prosperity and opportunity. Many of these scenarios describe
Cybertopias in which information and communication technologies
enable a highly individualistic, diverse, and innovative global community. Other
group 3 scenarios describe worlds in which technological advances solve all
or most of the problems facing humanity, including environmental problems.

The scenarios in group 4 are Sustainable Development scenarios.
In general these scenarios envisage a change in society towards improved co-operation
and democratic participation, with a shift in values favouring environment and
equity. These scenarios can be subdivided into two subgroups. The first subgroup
might be described as Our Common Future scenarios in which economic
growth occurs, but is managed so that social and environmental objectives may
also be achieved. The second subgroup could be characterized as Low Consumption
sustainable development scenarios. They describe worlds in which economic activity
and consumerism considerably decline in importance and, usually, population
is stabilized at relatively low levels. Many of these scenarios also envisage
increasing regional autonomy and self-reliance.

These groups correspond quite closely with the scenario archetypes that have
been developed by the Global Scenarios Group (see Box 2.4).
They also roughly correspond with the 4 new emission scenario families
that were developed in the IPCC SRES (see Section 2.5.1
below) and the scenarios developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development (WBCSD, 1997).

Box 2.4. The Global Scenarios Group: Scenarios and Process

A few organizations have been developing futures scenarios that incorporate
both narrative and quantitative elements, including, for example, the
Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB, 1992), the Millennium Project (Glenn
and Gordon, 1998), and the Global Scenario Group (Gallopin et al., 1997).
The latter is discussed here as an illustration of this kind of approach
to scenario development.

The Global Scenario Group (GSG) was convened by the Stockholm Environment
Institute in 1995 as an international process to illuminate the requirements
for a transition to global sustainability. It is a continuing and interdisciplinary
process involving participants from diverse regional perspectives, rather
than a single study. The GSG scenarios are holistic, developed both as
narratives  accounts of how human values, cultural choices, and
institutional arrangements might unfold  and detailed quantitative
representations of social conditions such as level of poverty, economic
patterns, and a wide range of environmental issues.

The GSG framework includes three broad classes of scenarios for scanning
the future  Conventional Worlds, Barbarization,
and Great Transitions  with variants within each class.
All are compatible with current patterns and trends, but have very different
implications for society and the environment in the 21st century (Gallopin
et al., 1997). In Conventional Worlds scenarios, global society
develops gradually from current patterns and dominant tendencies, with
development driven primarily by rapidly growing markets as developing
countries converge towards the development model of advanced industrial
(developed) countries. In Barbarization scenarios,
environmental and social tensions spawned by conventional development
are not resolved, humanitarian norms weaken, and the world becomes more
authoritarian or more anarchic. Great Transitions explore
visionary solutions to the sustainability challenge, which portray the
ascendancy of new values, lifestyles, and institutions.

Conventional Worlds is where much of the policy discussion
occurs, including most of the analysis of climate mitigation. The integrated
GSG approach situates the discussion of alternative emission scenarios
in the context of sustainable development, by making poverty reduction
an explicit scenario driver, and highlighting the links between climate
and other environment and resource issues (Raskin et al., 1998). The regional
distribution of emissions becomes an explicit consideration in scenario
design that is linked to poverty reduction, equity, and burden sharing
in environmentally-sound global development. By underscoring the interactions
between environmental and social goals, the policy strategies for addressing
climate are assessed for compatibility and synergy with a wider family
of actions for fostering sustainable development.